


Innocent

by SuperTeenWizard



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, I Don't Even Know, Love, Love Confessions, Some Fluff, and Stiles will do anything to make him happy, lots of emotions, they deserve each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 06:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18219221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperTeenWizard/pseuds/SuperTeenWizard
Summary: Stiles took a deep breath and slowly let it out, feeling his heartbeat begin to calm, as it always did in reaction to his alpha’s reassurances.“... I’m in love with you.” He stared down at his fingers picking at the fabric of the couch, he couldn’t believe it was just out there now.- Stiles confesses his love because he can't just keep bottling it up. -





	Innocent

**Author's Note:**

> Um. I don't even know. I just have emotions about Sterek. And Taylor Swift (Innocent in this case. Obviously.) songs always give me Sterek inspiration so? Enjoy!

The pack is having a games night, playing Cards Against Humanity at Derek's loft and just generally basking in the current lull in the battle against the rest of the (supernatural) world. Scott has just read out “I got 99 problems but ___ ain’t one.” and Stiles should be looking for a card in his hand that will be appropriately goofy enough to fit Scott’s sense of humour but he can’t focus, not when Derek is sitting just past Erica to Stile’s left with a soft, content smile on his face, the kind of smile that even just a year ago Stiles could never have even imagined, let alone known it could light up the entire fucking room.

 

Derek is wearing a maroon, cashmere sweater with thumbholes that make him look comfortable and ready for cuddles in a way that does things to Stiles. Things that he has been trying for years to ignore but that are getting a hell of a lot harder to push aside now that it is getting less and less physical and more and more emotional. Well, that isn’t entirely true, it is still just as physical (the man is literally hotter than anyone else Stiles has ever met for fucks sake) but that attraction is now layered with knowledge of the way he looks when he wakes up in the morning, and how he helps Isaac with his Calc homework, and reads books in Spanish, and is secretly a massive nerd. It is now coated in something that feels far too close to love to be anything but.

 

And that fucking terrifies Stiles.

 

Derek tosses a card onto the growing pile and it snaps Stiles back to the present. He quickly grabs a card (‘becoming a blueberry’ - Scott will no doubt be amused) and adds it. This has been happening far too often, getting lost in thoughts about Derek, staring at him at any quiet moment (watching him being happy is just about Stiles’ favourite pastime at this point), and Stiles is beginning to get to the point where he is willing to suck it up and tell the guy. So far he hasn’t managed to actually gather the courage but he reasons that the Derek of today wouldn’t be mean about it in any way, he’d be let down gently and maybe things would be awkward between them for a little while but at least then he’d _know_. They’d get through it.

 

Scott reads through the responses and adds the card to Stiles’ impressive (if he says so himself) pile of wins, but Stiles is still too distracted to truly appreciate it. He feels his resolve harden and he decides that this has got to end, one way or another.

 

By the time the rest of the pack starts heading to their own respective homes (or, in the case of Allison and Boyd, their partners’) Stiles is not quite as convicted but he knows he just has to do it. His years-long crush on Lydia had only died down when he had known for sure that she wouldn’t want him back (a certain someone telling him to get off his property and being generally attractive and strong had nothing to do with it. At all. Nup. No siree.) and he was sure that closure would help, it was the not knowing that really go to you. So he stayed behind to clean up which wasn’t altogether unusual.

 

He goes into the kitchen and begins washing up the plates and bowls that had been hijacked for snacks, ignoring Derek’s protests, “I’ve got this Stiles, you can head home or just crash here if you’d like.”

 

“Nah, man, I’ll help, it isn’t fair that you’ve got to do all the cleaning up. We’ve had this conversation multiple times now and you know you aren’t going to win, big guy.” Derek sighs at him fondly, the sheer affection in the noise making Stiles’ inside light up and his stupid, traitorous heart pound.

 

“Yeah yeah, you’re a stubborn arse, I know.”

 

“Hey!!” Stiles responds indignantly.

 

“I do appreciate the help though.” Stiles just smiles at him fondly in response and they finish the rest in comfortable silence.

 

When the plates are all in the rack drying and there are no more excuses to stall Stiles takes a deep breath and, knowing the smell of anxiety he must be giving off will make Derek follow, goes to sit on the couch.  


“Is everything okay?” Derek asks from his position on the other side of the sofa, he would look relaxed to anyone else but Stiles knows him to well, can see the slight tensity in his shoulders and the concern in his eyes.

 

“Yeah, it’s nothing bad, I just. I have something I think I kinda need to say. Like, it is entirely possible that you already know and thought it would just be easier to leave it alone as has been the status quo for the past few years but I just, I kinda do feel like I need to fully acknowledge it and get an explicit response from you, you know? Like, if I don’t say it know it will just keep building up inside me and I won’t be able to do anything about it and who knows what will happen? I’ll probably run away and become a hermit living in a log cabin in the woods or some shit, my only friends will be rabbits, rabbits Derek! I don’t even particularly like rabbits bu-” His heart was stuttering along and he knew he was getting caught up in nervous babbling and not getting to the point, it would have continued that way indefinitely if Derek hadn’t cut him off.

 

“Stiles! Calm down, it’s just you and me. There’s nothing to be nervous about. You know that.” The ‘wolf smiled at him fondly, “Just relax and say whatever it is that has gotten you like this.”

 

Stiles took a deep breath and slowly let it out, feeling his heartbeat begin to calm, as it always did in reaction to his alpha’s reassurances.

 

“... I’m in love with you.” He stared down at his fingers picking at the fabric of the couch, he couldn’t believe it was just out there now, “I have been for years. I mean, I wanted you since the moment I first saw you, hell, you could probably smell that. But. As I got to know you I just started to fall harder and harder.” He glanced up at Derek’s face but it was completely blank, in a way it hadn’t been in a very long time and Stiles hastened to try and banish it, “I mean, I know you don’t feel the same way and I don’t even know if you’re into guys or anything. And if you were you probably wouldn’t want me of all people but. Well. I am kind of incapable of catching my heart when it decides to jump so... But, I really don’t want this to ruin our friendship, you are so important to me in whatever capacity I can have you and I don’t want to jeopardize our friendship which is why I felt I had to tell you; it’s been kinda eating me up. I thought that maybe closure might help.”  


Derek’s face was shuttered, he was staring at his own hands (clasped together - not fidgeting). “Derek, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to..”

 

“No,” the older man looked up at him finally, emotions dancing over his face too quickly to interpret, “Stiles, that's… Fuck, just, don’t apologise... I’m not, you’re too...”

 

He took a deep breath and took a few seconds to compose himself. “Stiles. While I’m flattered,” he began in a voice laced with faux calm, “I’m not right for you. You deserve someone whole, someone who can make you laugh and have fun. Someone that didn’t have their world burnt down when they were sixteen. Someone more than just ash.” He continued over Stiles’ protests, “That isn’t me, I am bad news and trouble. I am a fucking storybook monster who has killed people, I have done horrible things. I am scarred and broken and you deserve someone whole, Stiles, you deserve so much better than me.”

 

“Derek, that’s not..” He let out a breath to try and calm down, he knew from experience that things could easily become charged between them if he let himself become frustrated at Derek’s martyrism, “First of all, you aren’t a monster or a bad person, you are a good person that has had tragic circumstances forced upon you that have made you do regrettable things for the people you love. You are selfless and kind and brave and thoughtful and _innocent_. Derek, you have had shit things happen to you and you are so strong for coming out of all of them a good person.”

 

Derek was shaking his head, “I’m not,” he argued vehemently, “I..”

 

“No, shut up, you’re wrong. And plus, I have hurt people too, I’ve done things I wish I didn’t have to but I would do them again in a heartbeat to protect the people I love. I am broken as well, I don’t need someone whole, I need someone with jagged edges to complement mine. Someone to become whole with. I don’t care if that’s kinda co-dependent because it’s true. And Derek, I feel whole when I’m with you. You make me happy and feel like I’m safe and I just… I just fucking love you, okay man? I love you as a friend and I’m in love with you as more and I need you in my life however I can get you. I love Scott and he’ll always be my brother but you’re basically my best friend now Der and I’m not gonna let you say that shit about yourself. Who you are isn’t where you’ve been or what you’ve done. You’ve come so far from how you were when we first met, I’ve seen you grow so much and open up like a blooming fucking flower,” Derek laughed a bit at that a blush staining his cheeks and a glistening in his eyes from the force of Stiles’ emotion, “god, I just. I love you so fucking much man and I know you don’t feel the same way bu-”

 

“That’s not true.” The words were spoken softly but with a conviction that halted Stiles heart and world for a second.

 

“W-what? But, you don’t even,” Stiles didn’t even know where to begin with finishing that statement, there were so many questions and doubts floating around his mind and he couldn’t focus on any of them. His world had centred in on Derek sitting in front of him and the sound of his heart tripping over itself.

 

“I do, love you I mean, but,” Derek stared up at him with broken eyes, he hadn’t seen that kind of pain in his face in a long time and it broke Stiles’ heart to have caused it. “Stiles I’m not good at that. At relationships and feelings and everything. Someone always gets hurt and, usually, it’s me and I don’t think I can do that again, it would ruin me. Fuck, Stiles, losing you would destroy me, I _can’t_. This, what we have now, it’s safe but if we..”

 

Stiles could feel his heart fracturing while at the same time being stitched up with emerging threads of glimmering hope.

 

“Der, I’m not. I’m not like them, I wouldn’t hurt you.”

 

“I know, not on purpose, I know that. I trust you. You’re essentially the only person left that I trust intrinsically but... That’s terrifying Stiles. Anything could happen at anytime.” Stiles knew exactly what he meant, he lived with that fear too, that the next big bad that came into town would kill someone he loved but he couldn’t let that fear isolate him and he wouldn’t let it isolate Derek.

 

“When my mom first got sick,” He took a deep breath, he hated talking about the heavy shit, but this was Derek, he always got it, “at first I didn’t understand what it meant and I’d get upset when she was too tired to play but, when Dad talked to me and I started realising what it meant I. I started to pull back a bit, I was terrified of losing her and felt like, maybe, if I wasn’t around her so much, then when she was gone forever it wouldn’t hurt so much..” He took a shuddering breath and bit his lip.

 

“Stiles,” Derek whispered, “You don’t have to-”

 

“I want to just,” he took another bracing breath, “Just give me a sec.” Derek reached out and laced their fingers together, the simple action strengthening his resolve. “And then, she had to go to stay in the hospital and a first I would make up excuses to stay at Scotts and not visit her but I missed her so much all the time and I realised that it would never be easier, that I would always miss her and that I should take advantage of the time I did have with her, so that, when she was gone, I’d have those memories to hold onto.” Stiles was crying quietly at this point, her absence was a hole he would never be able to fill in but he took comfort in the knowledge that he had had for whatever time he had gotten. “We live fucking dangerous lives and, you’re right, at any moment one of us could be killed, but, Der, wouldn’t you regret not making the most of the time we _do_ have? You make me happy and I am selfish enough to fight for that until my last breath, and, I think I could make you happy too?”

 

“You do, Stiles, of course you do and you’re right I just.” He looked down at their linked hands and pulled Stiles’ into his lap, grasping it with both hands as though it was his only tether to safety. “Fuck it,” he muttered looking into Stiles’ honeyed eyes with determination.

 

Derek framed Stiles’ face with one of his hands and stroked his cheekbone with his thumb, “You’re sure you want this?” he asked with a sense of finality that made Stiles beam with hope.

 

“Yes, yes definitely, Derek,” He clasped at the older man’s sweater with his free hand, “I’ve genuinely never been more sure of anything else in my life. We won’t regret this, I swear.”

 

They never did.

 

 

 _I guess you really did it this time_  
_Left yourself in your warpath_  
_Lost your balance on a tightrope_  
_Lost your mind tryin' to get it back_

 _Wasn't it easier in your lunchbox days?_  
_Always a bigger bed to crawl into_  
_Wasn't it beautiful when you believed in everything_  
_And everybody believed in you?_

 _It's alright, just wait and see_  
_Your string of lights is still bright to me_  
_Oh, who you are is not where you've been_  
_You're still an innocent_  
_You're still an innocent_

 _Did some things you can't speak of_  
_But at night you live it all again_  
_You wouldn't be shattered on the floor now_  
_If only you had seen what you know now then_

 _Wasn't it easier in your firefly-catchin' days?_  
_When everything out of reach_  
_Someone bigger brought down to you_  
_Wasn't it beautiful runnin' wild 'til you fell asleep_  
_Before the monsters caught up to you?_

 _It's alright, just wait and see_  
_Your string of lights is still bright to me_  
_Oh, who you are is not what you've been_  
_You're still an innocent_  
_It's okay, life is a tough crowd_  
_32, and still growin' up now_  
_Who you are is not what you did_  
_You're still an innocent_

 _Time turns flames to embers_  
_You'll have new Septembers_  
_Every one of us has messed up too_  
_Minds change like the weather_  
_I hope you remember_  
_Today is never too late to be brand new_

 _It's alright, just wait and see_  
_Your string of lights is still bright to me_  
_Oh, who you are is not what you've been_  
_You're still an innocent_  
_It's okay, life is a tough crowd_  
_32, and still growin' up now_  
_Who you are is not what you did_  
_You're still an innocent_  
_You're still an innocent_

 _Lost your balance on a tightrope_  
_It's never too late to get it back_

 

_\- Innocent - Taylor Swift -_

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Comments and kudos always make my day and constructive criticism is always greatly appreciated. Have a great day guys! (what am I saying, probably evening/night. Let's be real).


End file.
